


Max and Magda

by cherikfan



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Early in Canon, Erik Has Feelings, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, Erik is a Sweetheart, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Protective Erik Lehnsherr, Trauma, or I'll use Petrova since it's a common Russian surname, since the comics never gave her a family name I'll either use her married name which is eisenhardt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:00:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28967964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherikfan/pseuds/cherikfan
Summary: Max and Magda lose each other after their families flee Berlin. When they find each other again, both feel it is a miracle. This is the story of their relationship from right after Poland is liberated to the tragic end of their romance.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Magda (X-Men)
Kudos: 5





	1. France, 1945

In France, Max was feeling better by the day. The improvement felt traitorous, as if he was scorning those who had died. His good health seemed to him at times a mockery of his family. He told Magda as much, when she was asking for his forgiveness for not recovering faster. 

“We could be anywhere by now, if not for me,” she said. 

Max squeezed her bony hand. “I wish I wasn’t better yet. Your state is more fitting to everything than my sufficiently increasing health is.”

To his surprise, she frowned at that. “Don’t feel guilty, Max. Your family loved you. They would want you to be improving. They’d want everything good to happen to you.” 

Max could not see how anything good could ever come his way, but he kept silent. 

“I’d like for us to stay together,” he said. 

Her talk of happiness gave him the courage to say that. He’d meant to say it to her this whole time. Since he saw her again for the first time since Berlin. Max could not believe Magda, _his_ Magda, the one girl he’d ever been interested in _like that_ , had stood right there. He’d stared at her through the barbed wire as if she would dissolve in front of his eyes without a trace like morning dew. Skeletal, gray-pale and bald, it was nevertheless his Magda. There was no mistaking her, not for Max who had her memorized. All those years during the war, seeing her alive for the first time had been one of his precious few moments of relief. After finding her like that, against all odds, how could he leave her? 

At first she said nothing in response to the idea of staying together. Did she take what he said the wrong way? Did she think he was too presumptuous? When she smiled a tired smile he could finally breathe again. 

“Yes,” Magda said. “Together. I think I shall put you in my pocket so you don’t leave me again.” 

Max could have pointed out that when they went their separate ways after Berlin, that was hardly his choice. Both of them had been children and their families left the city in search of safety. Magda’s family went with a group of Romani people, and Max’s family went alone in search of a Jewish community in Poland where they could find safety in numbers. That was before the ghettos, before the annexation. Magda and her companions tried to get to Russia, where Anya, Magda’s mother, was from. 

They told Max he had to leave the hospital soon. There were many French, British, and American soldiers who needed urgent care and France had only so many beds in its depleted hospitals. He explained about Magda, that if he left, he was fearful he might never see her again. The nurses and doctors knew who he meant. The redhead girl with a sweet temper. Quiet, never a word of complaint. Max did not explain that after what they survived, maybe nothing would ever seem all that terrible by comparison. She had pneumonia and was so weak with it she could barely stand. Normally young women did not succumb to such an ordinary and easy illness, but Magda had been weak already, from years of starvation and forced labour. Adding an illness to her condition, even a minor one, had devastating consequences. He did not think she would die, but Max had no intention of dragging her out of the country before she made a full recovery. Even the doctors wanted her to stay put. It was Max they wanted gone. They understood the precarious situation, but they simply had no capacity to take care of a patient who was well enough to leave. In the end, they let him stay on as an employee instead of a patient. His jobs included glamorous tasks like emptying bedpans and mopping urine-covered floors. The only way they let this happen was if he found a place to live. It was an easy lie. He begged a woman who owned a nearby hotel to sign the paper stating that he had lodgings with her. She agreed a little after the third time he swore up and down he’d give her some coin for her trouble as soon as he earned any. Indeed, the first little sum of money the hospital gave him he gave to the lady. Luckily he could sneak a little food from the hospital cafeteria. It wasn’t as though he was used to a full stomach. He saved the money for train fare. Magda was getting stronger. Soon they could leave France. It was a beautiful country for sure. But he barely spoke a little French and Magda didn’t at all. They’d never get jobs that way and everything was so expensive here. When he brought up the topic, she said she would have liked to stay in France. They decided if they saved up some money and learned the language, they might try to make a life for themselves here. Someday. 

Right now, merely being in France felt like a mistake. When Magda had realized other displaced persons, as governments around the world were calling them, weren't being transferred to hospitals in France like the two of them were, she asked him why they received this special treatment. He said he didn't know. Clerical error, but a happy one, for once. Best not to question it. He could not tell her that a silly, flag-wearing American and a short, gruff Canadian arranged it. 

“So where would you want to go?” he asked her. 

“I’m not sure,” Magda said. Where would you? Do you want to go home? That’s what some people are doing.”

Max shook his head. “I don’t. In fact, I don’t think I’ll want to go back to Germany as long as I live.” 

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. 

“Is that what you want? To go home? For you I will. Where you go, I go.” 

She looked at him in disbelief. “No. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like over there now that things are slowly becoming normal again, but what’s the use? I know it’s not the same as it was before they destroyed everything that was decent, everything that made our country worthwhile.” 

Max understood how she felt. He would have wanted his old life back. His family back. He’d have loved to live in the Berlin he knew when he was very little, before things got irrevocably bad. 

“It will never be the way it was.” 

“No,” Magda agreed. Her eyes were sad.

They decided to go somewhere people spoke Russian because Magda spoke it, though not fluently. Other than his little French, Max knew a bit of English, but Britain was also too expensive and America felt impossible. Somehow Russia seemed more frightening to Magda than the Ukraine did. It was probably because Russia had been the place her grandparents fled in order to look for a better life. While she had been a patient at the hospital, Max earned enough money to get train tickets to Vinnytsia, a city in west-central Ukraine, and to get them lodgings for a few nights. Even food included, they had about a week to find jobs in Vinnytsia. They chose the place because Magda’s family spoke of it fondly back in Berlin, before the world ended. An aunt lived in Vinnytsia, and Magda’s mother liked visiting there when she was a girl. No, it was a cousin. Well, it didn’t matter. Some family relation used to enjoy living there. That was enough to make it feel like they were following the yellow brick road to the wizard from that ridiculous movie a nurse at the hospital often talked about. 


	2. The Ukraine, 1945

The days on the train were long, but they couldn’t risk wasting the little money they had on beds in strange cities along the way. So they slept in their seats and watched the scenery change as it raced by. Once, they played cards with a young couple who were going to Moscow. Magda and Max didn’t speak much. There was not much to talk about that didn’t elicit pain or anxiety. The past was taboo because even their happiest childhood memories were tainted now. There was no point in talking about the future because that way fear and worry lay, waiting to swallow them. There was no one in the world to help them. They were as alone in life as any two people had ever been. Forget family; they hadn’t a single friend between them they could call on. A part of Max was happy with being alone with Magda, just the two of them and no other. As if the war had ended all other life on Earth and they were the only people alive to tell the tale. The last lovers left alive after everything was gone. Except the world was full of people and the two of them weren’t even lovers. She had been ill. Was that why he hadn’t made a move? Was it because he was petrified of the notion she might be insulted by the very idea? So offended or repulsed she’d walk away and he’d never see her again? 

***

As expected, there weren’t many jobs in town. Magda cleaned houses and pubs, whatever place would have her. Max got himself on a factory line. It was good to feel all the metal machinery around him. Once they had enough money to put down a rent deposit, Max suggested they move to a tiny wooden house he saw in the woods. More of a cabin than a house, if he was being honest. He only thought of it because Magda still had trouble being around people whenever they left the small room they were renting. She was always miserable in a crowd. The only time she seemed more happy than not was when they were alone. 

They hadn’t consummated their relationship, whatever their relationship was. Max didn’t dare disturb the peace of the fragile rhythm they had fallen into, living together but barely pecking each other on the lips. If she’d reached for him in that way, he would have. Of course he would have. Did Magda know that? Was she also uncertain as he was? No, it was not possible. He loved her as best he could. As well as he could remember how. It was unthinkable that she wouldn’t see this. But perhaps her pain, as great as his own, blinded her to any joyous feeling around her. Blinded her to how great Max’s love was for her, that he was much more than her steadfast companion. Or he would be more, if only she’d let him know that’s what she wanted. 

One night they were sitting by the fireplace in the little forest hut. Magda looked content. Her eyes kept leaving her sewing and finding his gaze instead. Making a snap decision, Max stood. Walking over to her felt like it took an eternity and no time at all. His skin was on fire. Her hand, when he reached for it, was so hot to the touch he almost let it go. _That’s how you know something is alive; it says no._ He’d heard someone say that once. Magda had put her sewing down before he took her hand in his, as if she knew. Not having the words for any of this, he gently pushed her shirt lower on her shoulder. The small motion revealed more of her collarbone. Her eyes never left his. Max wasn’t entirely sure if he kissed her or she did him.

Magda laced her fingers up to the buttons at the neck of his shirt. After unbuttoning the first few, she asked: “Yes?” 

He laughed from feeling so foolish. All this time waiting for her to return his feelings and she asks? How could she be so far off base? 

“Yes. To everything. Always. Whatever you like.” 

That made her pause. “How should I know what I like? I’ve never.” 

He kissed her again. “So find out.” 

It was not exactly what he thought it would be. Max did not know it was like talking without words. Being close to someone in a way words can’t achieve. 

“I’ve come to think of caring as weakness,” he whispered in a voice so low even she would barely hear. “I had become what I had to, to endure the world. As long as you are with me I don’t think anything can take me back to not feeling again.” 

She reached for him in the dark. “I have no pretty words like that. I love you too.” 

_ I love you. I love you. I love you.  _

He didn’t know he was kissing her until he felt her whole body against his own, naked under the covers. 

“You don’t have to give me words. You never have to speak to me if you’d rather not. Or speak Russian, even if I can’t make heads or tails of it all. Just come to me like this and I’ll understand everything I need to know.”

Magda laughed at him but that was all right. Max knew he was being ridiculous. 

“You are a very strange boy,” she told him. 

He smiled as he kissed her short hair near her eyebrow, holding her tight. 

“You don’t know half of it.” 

As he jokingly said that, he thought of the odd little trick he used to have with the spoons at dinner back in Berlin with his family. Then Magda’s hand traveled down and he thought no more of such silly things as floating spoons. 


	3. Love and Miscommunication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max and Magda settle into a routine in their new life, but faulty communication threatens the peace they carved out for themselves.

This is how their days went. During the day, both had to work. Terrible jobs, of course, since neither had so much as a middle school diploma. Still, even young as they were, they saw how much time, how many years sprawled before them. For years, the future had been a thing the enemy pried from their near-dead hands. In Poland, when the morning came, and the slave labour, and the horror, began again, neither of them knew if they’d live to see another sunrise or even sunset. Not that living or dying made too much difference where they were. There seemed to be no boundary between the dead and the living. Neither of them really wanted to live. Staying alive didn’t feel particularly important. Out of spite and nearly involuntary instinct, both survived. 

For Max, seeing her alive gave back his will to live. Not for his own sake but for Magda’s. Max wanted to keep her safe, to keep her breathing. He’d heard somewhere that while there was life there was hope. He did not quite believe that, but he did when he thought of all the things he did, all the things he’d be willing to do, to keep Magda alive. 

One time, she told him that the act of saving her wasn’t just about her as a person. Though she loved him dearly for it, she told him, it was about who he was. 

“You’re a protector. It’s your nature. Me being the lucky one you happened to choose was incidental,” Magda had said. 

Max hadn’t agreed. It was their first fight. 

They went to work angry that morning. Max was miserable the entire time. For the first couple hours, he was angry at her. Then he felt like an ass and could not wait to apologize. 

It was a long day. 

When he got back to their cabin, she was sitting in her chair, peeling potatoes. Max washed up and joined Magda, settling down in the chair closest to hers. Looking at the ingredients, he could tell she was preparing a stew. As always, there would hardly be any meat in it. They could not afford any more. 

The Ukraine was a country under communist rule. You had to have food tickets, which barely provided you with enough to prevent starvation. Obviously, the black market for food items flourished. People, every single person, stole what they could from their jobs to trade for food. Those who worked with livestock and food products stole that and traded it for furniture, for cloth, for whatever they wanted. The problem was, Max and Magda did not have jobs that had good opportunities for theft. Stealing from the state was one thing, but Magda cleaned people’s homes. Stealing from a person was a much larger violation than stealing from a state-owned factory or some such. Of course, putting “state-owned” in front of “factory” was redundant. There were no privately owned businesses in the country, no really. Almost not at all. 

Max reminded himself that they could someday leave. Nothing would be keeping them here. They’d learn French and go live in France like they wanted to do when they were hospitalized there. Or they’d learn English and go to England. Both Max and Magda spoke German. It was their native tongue for them both. It was the only language they truly had in common, so they used it all the time with each other, though it was a hateful feeling for them both. They started sprinkling in a little Russian, so eventually they would never have to use German again. Nevertheless, English was easy to learn for German speakers. Everyone said so. So maybe England wasn’t such a terrible idea, down the road, once they found their footing in this brave new post-war world. 

For now, the Ukraine suited them well enough. They were, after all, exactly the kind of folk communism was tailor-made for. Young people without a penny to their names. The poor, the uneducated, who did not mind others having all their belongings taken because it meant they were less likely to starve. That was the one good thing. Wretches that the two of them were, they wouldn’t be beggars on the streets here. Instead they’d have terrible jobs and they’d sit in their tiny room, cold and hungry, but at least they were unlikely to die of it. The type of poverty that can’t kill you but won’t ever let you escape. That was Communism. It was not a comfortable fit, but Max kept reminding himself that at least they weren’t on the streets. The Ukraine was not an easy life, but both he and Magda had known worse. Far, far, worse. So did it really matter at this point whether they were always a little tired, a little hungry and a little cold? No, all that was nothing compared to what they survived. And they were together. That was something. Yes, that was something. 

Thinking such things, the time passed slowly for Max. He did not know what exactly he should say. It was hard, worrying that Magda could just leave. It made him want to retreat, to keep conflict away. To keep his thoughts to himself. That was no way to live. There had to be some way for Magda to see how much he loved her and how he never wanted to spend time away from her. Max wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. So he started to tell her. He said a great many things. 

“You’re all I have,” he said. 

_I’ve never said anything before because I was scared. I knew it would change things and I didn’t want changes. I had been so happy just to know you are alive that it would have been enough. Then we came here and nothing altered for a bit. Until it did. Which made me realize that no matter what I do, things won’t stay the same anyway. That we couldn’t just live next to each other and never deal with the situation. It made no difference whether I rocked the boat or not. So I’m not afraid anymore. This is me dealing with the situation. Just know I’ll always care about you, whatever you decide._

He had the sense that something was forgotten, left dangling, but what it was he could not say. Magda blinked at him sadly. 

“What are you saying?” she asked. “Are you asking me to leave?” she added. 

Max looked at her in shock. “I must have done it all wrong! Leave? I don’t want you to leave. I love you. I want you to marry me.” 

Magda cried and laughed. “You really did do it wrong! Truly!” 

“What do you say?” Max asked, more self-conscious than he could remember being. 

“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you, stupid!” 

“I love you,” Max said. 

He looked at her with a hopeful, slightly worried, look on his face. Looking back, even he would admit that the expression must have been tender in the open, vulnerable, child-like face he used to wear when he was with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The description of living in a communist country comes from my own family.  
> They weren't in Ukraine, but they were in Eastern Europe and didn't exactly love life under such a rigid, oppressive system.


End file.
